Yes, I managed to tie Fight Club into a sermon. It’s rather amazing; in fact, I’d say I’m somewhat impressed with myself!
John 13:31-35; Revelation 21:1-6; Psalm 148; Acts 11:1-18
Several years ago, there was a movie with Edward Norton and Brad Pitt called Fight Club. The basic premise was these two guys started an underground fighting ring which spawned the quote: “[The] first rule of Fight Club is – you do not talk about Fight Club.” The reason I bring this up is there seems to be an unspoken rule among Lutherans that you do not talk about Revelation. Some of this comes from an early statement by Martin Luther where he didn’t consider the book of Revelation to be as “canon” as the others, in large part cause he thought it didn’t fit with the ideas of “grace alone” and “faith alone”, though later in life he changed his mind.
I also think Revelation gets ignored because a lot of pastors just don’t get it. I can’t say I blame them; there are a lot of competing views on how to interpret the book of Revelation, most of which contradict themselves a few times. But when I was in seminary, I was really lucky to have a class that was devoted to studying the book of Revelation, and it made me fall in love with this picture that God gave to John.
This week we come into the end of the book. (It’s somewhat unsurprising, really; the middle is what gets people all complicated anyways.) John had received a set of 7 letters to various churches from Jesus; he saw a vision of God on His throne in heaven; he had observed the events leading up to the death of our current creation, all while listening to the angels and saints praising God. Finally John is shown Satan’s final defeat at the hands of Jesus.
Then we reach our current scene, where a new heaven and new earth appear after the death of the old. There’s a mention of a lack of any sea, which may seem odd to us, but the sea was always a symbol of chaos in ancient times, so the lack of a sea is yet another example of God’s victory.
Then John sees the “new Jerusalem”, also called the “Holy City”, descending from heaven like a bride. Accompanying the City is a voice announcing the restoration of God’s presence with humanity, saying, “Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every team from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”
It’s a wonderful image that God is giving us here – showing the culmination of God’s victory over sin, death, and the devil which began at the cross. It’s things like this which make me love the book of Revelation, because in a lot of ways it brings humans back to the Garden of Eden but in a new and better way.
Look at some of the similarities and differences. In Genesis, humans are agrarian, having their every need met by the garden itself; in Revelation, humans live in a Holy City. In both there is a something of life that humans are free to consume, (though in this part of Revelation it is water, and in Genesis it is a tree. To be fair, the tree shows up later in Revelation.) and in both God and humans interact regularly. In Genesis, we have an idyllic setting where no bad things happen, at least until humans sinned; in Revelation we have the same idyllic picture, except that, having been transformed into Christ’s likeness, sin is no longer a problem. It really is Creation 2.0.
This is why I’m so surprised that Revelation gets preached as little as it does; for me it is such a wonderfully comforting message, because the new Creation is painted as something to look forward to. It’s a message of hope in the midst of a world that doesn’t have near enough of it. It’s a reminder of how God intended to interact with humans in the first place, and how He will again. And most of all, it is a reminder that no matter what we go through on Earth, in the end, God is bigger than all of it.